Both NASA and SpaceX (News - Alert) were pleased and a even a bit giddy at the near-flawless performance of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft during the COTS-1 demonstration flight on December 8. From the remarks given by both NASA managers and SpaceX executives at the post-flight press conference carried on NASA-TV, all parties expected something to go wrong somewhere -- but it didn't.

"I would say today is an indication that this in an indication that the [COTS] experiment is working," said NASA Commercial Crew and Cargo Program (yes, C3PO, for short) manager Alan Lindenmoyer. " Thank you for the early Christmas present .It's a great way to start the holidays."

Lindenmoyer was effusive in his praise, saying all of the flights objectives were met -- noting he didn't have to run through a prepared checklist citing met objectives until the flight stopped -- and cited the skill of SpaceX's employees for finding a potential problem with the Falcon 9's second stage before launch, analyzing it, fixing it, and finally turning it around rapidly to get ready for the flight. "It's a great demonstration of SpaceX's skill and agility."

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk was almost flabbergasted at the results of today's flight. "For a rocket to work, and for a spacecraft to work, they're very complex devices and so much to go wrong, and it all went right," Musk stated. "We didn't have to go to any backup systems at any point. I'm sort of in semi-shock.. I think that's a sort of natural reaction that kind of blows my mind."

All 18 of the Draco thrusters on the Dragon spacecraft worked "flawlessly" and the mission data was almost "too good," Musk said, with the successful flight was a "testament" to the "incredible work" of SpaceX's employees. 

Musk also gave rich praise to NASA, and the COTS team in particular. "We're only here because we stand on the shoulders of giants," he said.  With SpaceX building its hardware using core technologies developed by the government space agency over decades and working through a public-private partnership, "We wouldn't be here without the help of NASA, I can't emphasize that enough... I think the COTS model is really a good model."

The all-smiles post-launch press conference also provided Musk the opportunity to plug Dragon for manned crew flight and to take a swipe at the Lockheed-Martin Orion vehicle, which has cost the U.S. government about $4.8 billion so far.

"There's no pixie dust needed" to convert Dragon into a manned spacecraft, Musk said. "If people were in the capsule today, they would have had a nice ride.. .and would have done quite well." Dragon needed the addition of a crew escape system and some "minor upgrades" to its life support systems and electronics. "The vehicle you saw today can easily transport people."

More importantly, Dragon's heat shield is engineered -- perhaps even over-engineered a bit, judging from Musk's comments on the initial assessment of Dragon's landing today -- to handle re-entry speeds from lunar and Mars missions.  

"Dragon has arguably more capability than Orion," Musk stated. "Anything Orion can do, Dragon can do. I don't believe Orion heat shield can handle re-entry from mars velocity [speeds]...  It's good to have multiple companies. We'd certainly like Dragon to be considered for any such [Orion-slated] missions."